I've used FlexPerks. Basically, you get 2% of total spend back, to use toward travel. They use Travelocity search enging to find flights, as I recall, and price them accurately. You need to have 20k points, to buy a ticket that costs up to $400. From there, I think it is 30k points, to buy a ticket that costs up to $600, and so on, in 10k increments.
The nice part is that it is essentially a cash-purchased ticket, not an award ticket, so you can use it on flights with no award availability. The down side, is that you have to try to price a ticket as close to your threshold amount as possible, in order to maximize the value. In other words, if your ticket costs $290, you need to spend 20k FlexPerks points for it. If your ticket costs $399, you still only spend 20k FlexPerks points for it.

I've used FlexPerks. Basically, you get 2% of total spend back, to use toward travel. They use Travelocity search enging to find flights, as I recall, and price them accurately. You need to have 20k points, to buy a ticket that costs up to $400. From there, I think it is 30k points, to buy a ticket that costs up to $600, and so on, in 10k increments.
The nice part is that it is essentially a cash-purchased ticket, not an award ticket, so you can use it on flights with no award availability. The down side, is that you have to try to price a ticket as close to your threshold amount as possible, in order to maximize the value. In other words, if your ticket costs $290, you need to spend 20k FlexPerks points for it. If your ticket costs $399, you still only spend 20k FlexPerks points for it.

Click to expand...

I think we get a bit more than 2% spend back, because they give two points for grocery and cell phone spends.

I had looked into FlexPerks a while back and aside from the threshold issues mentioned above, I found that it is pretty tough to get a reasonably -priced international business class ticket as compared to the airline miles rates (of course, and that's a big one, provided you can find the required low-cost availability)

for example: -
US-Europe ticket in J is $3,000 on average. You are theoretically able to get the ticket for 100K miles. The $3,000 ticket would be 150K points. If we assume that all purchases earn 1 point or mile per dollar spent, and that we would only earn miles by spending on the respective credit cards (i.e. no flown miles, no double miles for categories like airline, gas, or grocery purchases), you would need $100k spend vs $150K spend on the ticket. Thus, flexperks would be 50% harder to reach for the same reward).

Of course, there are real-world complications that make this less of a drastic gap between FP and miles:
- Some of the spending IS going to be in categories that earn miles faster
- You DO earn miles and status miles on the FP ticket. So, the net cost is reduced by about 15K miles for a standard RT to Europe (with Class of service bonuses). You also get a nice chunk of status miles out of it.
- Finding J to Europe for 100K miles may or may not be difficult or a game many are willing to play - and 3k fares are much easier to get ahold of
- some airline-affiliated cards have nice features, such as priority for upgrades, lounge access, companion tickets, etc - which could add up to a decent package if it makes sense for you...

Whats good about this CC is if you spend a ton of $$ on either Gas, or Supermarkets every month you earn 2 pts per $ or $10k in spending yields you a tkt that costs up to $400 which means a transcon from NY that has a base fare of < $348 can be had. I route my UA as JFK-SFO-LAX/SNA and walk away with 6100 EQMs for $0 out of pocket

The main drawback is that you will get 2X on the pts on 1 of these 3 Gas,Supermkt, or Tkts purchased using the CC. Each month which ever of those 3 you spent the most gets 2x the others will be 1x, so its up to 4% back which is pretty good in my book

also from time to time over the year they run if you spend $X you get X bonus pts or take a survey for 250 pts, it might not be much but they do add up

Now my just CXed JFK-IAD-SFO-NRT trip that I was booked for yesterday cost me 40k in pts since the tkt was $757 and would have yielded me 16k+ in EQMs , and UA will now allow me to rebook it for May when the fare is close to $1200ai so not a bad way to use 40k

1 big downside , I think Flex is the only CC that wont allow you to earn any pts for purchases from The Mint, but it did count in the past towards the toatl amount 1 needed to spend to get some bonus pts

double miles for cell phone service
Every month for over a year, I got double miles for my verizon auto payment. Last month only single points. I called flexperks and was told that verizon changed their coding and was now not classified as cell service. I called Verizon and they do not care.
I wonder how to fix this?
The good news is that Flexperks gave me 3500 points to keep me happy.. Customer appreaciation points. That was nice!

Data point: confirmed that if two people have FlexPerks accounts, and one transfers all points to the other, then closes account, the points are safe. We're sitting on 100k, waiting on final disney plans. Not interested in shelling out points for two annual fees...

Overall, we've been content with the account, online management, customer service, and other than their slighting of MommaMint purchases, I would recommend the card (provided there is a healthy sign-on bonus).

Air fare sales makes flex points a real deal. Right now there is a two day sale to Honolului from the west coast on most airlines. Thats for this fall. It gets the total fare to just under $400. That means 20000 flex points for San Diego to Honolulu. Way better than any airline miles will get you. If I can line up a place to stay, I may jump on it.

double miles for cell phone service
Every month for over a year, I got double miles for my verizon auto payment. Last month only single points. I called flexperks and was told that verizon changed their coding and was now not classified as cell service. I called Verizon and they do not care.
I wonder how to fix this?
The good news is that Flexperks gave me 3500 points to keep me happy.. Customer appreaciation points. That was nice!

Click to expand...

After two months of single points for the Verizon bill, it went back up to double points again. Very nice since i get to keep the 3500 appreciation points. I just used them to pay for next years fee.

If you can't get their travelocity-powered engine to give you the flights you want, their very professional travel agents will do it for you. You get a ticket issued by a human, with no fee. I booked many tricked tickets that I could price on ITA but could not book anywhere by calling their travel agents.. And when you call their travel agents you are not calling the airline, so all is safe for the tricked deal.

They give a $25 airline allowance, supposedly to cover nuisance airline fees such as baggage. Must use by purchasing anything from the operating carrier on the day of award travel. I always purchase an airline gift certificate for $25 on the day of an award fight. Makes the award value up to $425 for 20,000 miles.

They often send courtesy checks with a bonus. Currently the offer is use the check for a minimum of $1000 and you'll get 3500 bonus points. The fee to use the check is 4% or $5 whichever is great. So I dep the check for 1k into my bank acct and for $40 I get 3500 pts. Nice ROI.
PS - good idea on using the $25 for a gift cert. I never thought of that.

I just took advantage of the Alaska air $300 rt fare from SanDiego to Honolulu. Two tickets valued at about $770 cost us 40k points. Not bad and a direct flight too. I used their agent, not the travelocity search engine.

Just booked four MSP-MCO for WDW, though had to search segment-by-segment to get what we were seeing on delta.com and travelocity.com... we were seeing sub-$400 on dl.com, but initial flexperks search only showed 30,000 point (i.e. >$400) itineraries.

It's still our default card for in between using other cards for new sign-up bonuses, which works well, as just when we're pulling it out of the safe, we get a bonus offer to re-engage...

If you can't get their travelocity-powered engine to give you the flights you want, their very professional travel agents will do it for you. You get a ticket issued by a human, with no fee. I booked many tricked tickets that I could price on ITA but could not book anywhere by calling their travel agents.. And when you call their travel agents you are not calling the airline, so all is safe for the tricked deal.

They give a $25 airline allowance, supposedly to cover nuisance airline fees such as baggage. Must use by purchasing anything from the operating carrier on the day of award travel. I always purchase an airline gift certificate for $25 on the day of an award fight. Makes the award value up to $425 for 20,000 miles.

Click to expand...

1. I also used the agents. The agent was easy and very helpfull.

2. I just learned how the $25 allowance works. First you charge things from the flight to your Flexperks card. Then when you get home, call them to get the credit on the card.
So, remember to bring that (flexperks )card with you when travelling.

I have the card and am pretty pleased with it as a backup, my main card being the SPG Amex. I have been able to buy springbreak tickets to mexico the past two years for 20K points each. To get this ticket using a traditional miles program would have been 35K miles at the saver level. Given that there wasn't any springbreak availability on CO to my destination to Mexico...surely an easypass redemption would have been necessary = 70K miles. It's really simple. The one thing that is tough is the rise in airfares (at least out of Houston...don't monitor other places). It was significantly tougher to get the ticket under 400 this year...in fact I snagged it in those few hours after the fed taxes stopped due to the FAA shutdown and before CO hiked their prices to compensate.

I was able to book a $1800 ticket in Premium Coach (SK) from US to Europe (with UA connections) for 70K points in April. According to other posts here, the maximum I should have been able to book was a $1400 ticket, or am I mistaken? I booked this using the website, not an agent.

The same trip today is still $1800 USD, but using the website doesn't give me that option now. Is it worth trying to call an agent, or has the policy changed since my last booking (i.e. less value for the points)?

I was able to book a $1800 ticket in Premium Coach (SK) from US to Europe (with UA connections) for 70K points in April. According to other posts here, the maximum I should have been able to book was a $1400 ticket, or am I mistaken? I booked this using the website, not an agent.

The same trip today is still $1800 USD, but using the website doesn't give me that option now. Is it worth trying to call an agent, or has the policy changed since my last booking (i.e. less value for the points)?

Click to expand...

It can not hurt to call the agent if the website will not do it for you. The one I spoke with was friendly and easy to deal with.

I recently learned that Flexperks has a link for giving charitable contributions which gives the cardholder 3 points per dollar spent. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, each point is worth up to 2 cents when used for travel. So, that's like a 6% rebate on donations! I'm going to start using this card for all of my charitable donations!

I recently learned that Flexperks has a link for giving charitable contributions which gives the cardholder 3 points per dollar spent. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, each point is worth up to 2 cents when used for travel. So, that's like a 6% rebate on donations! I'm going to start using this card for all of my charitable donations!

Sent from my iPad using milepoint[/quote]
The downside of this is that the charity is charged a percentage of your donation. Perhaps a better choice (at least from the charity's viewpoint) is the Capital One card (Venture gives 2 points per dollar) which does not charge the charity at all. See https://www.capitalone.com/give/index.php

The downside of this is that the charity is charged a percentage of your donation. Perhaps a better choice (at least from the charity's viewpoint) is the Capital One card (Venture gives 2 points per dollar) which does not charge the charity at all. See https://www.capitalone.com/give/index.php

I recently learned that Flexperks has a link for giving charitable contributions which gives the cardholder 3 points per dollar spent. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, each point is worth up to 2 cents when used for travel. So, that's like a 6% rebate on donations! I'm going to start using this card for all of my charitable donations!

Sent from my iPad using milepoint

Click to expand...

The downside of this is that the charity is charged a percentage of your donation. Perhaps a better choice (at least from the charity's viewpoint) is the Capital One card (Venture gives 2 points per dollar) which does not charge the charity at all. See https://www.capitalone.com/give/index.php[/quote]
I just found this today too and was going to post but you beat me to it I make fairly significant donations using cc and would clearly like the charity to not have to the cost so I'll be using Capital one more (esp. coupled with the end of Schwab 2% rebate and no foreign exchange fee I'll be using C1 for my overseas transactions).

The downside of this is that the charity is charged a percentage of your donation. Perhaps a better choice (at least from the charity's viewpoint) is the Capital One card (Venture gives 2 points per dollar) which does not charge the charity at all. See https://www.capitalone.com/give/index.php

Click to expand...

I just found this today too and was going to post but you beat me to it I make fairly significant donations using cc and would clearly like the charity to not have to the cost so I'll be using Capital one more (esp. coupled with the end of Schwab 2% rebate and no foreign exchange fee I'll be using C1 for my overseas transactions).[/quote]

The only downside that I see to the Capital One donation deal is that you cannot allocate the funds to a particular program of the charity--it has to go in as a general donation to that charity. I suspect that this limitation may also be an issue with the Flexperks program.

“Our intention was never to launch a website, our intention was to build a global brand for frequent flyers.”

content + community + technology + social

InsideFlyer was created by travelers, for travelers. Here you can discover and share your experiences related to travel and frequent flyer programs with business travelers, leisure travelers, infrequent flyers and road warriors alike.

InsideFlyer is a privately funded venture based in Colorado Springs, CO (affectionally—the House of Miles). We’re a small diverse group of experienced frequent flyer experts, travel community builders, technologists, and friends of the flyer who want to help you learn to be an expert traveler. We believe that learning about frequent flyer miles should be as fun as travel itself.